


The Art of Saying What You Mean (and meaning what you say)

by clowningstreaks



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Jane is gayyy, Max is pretty, My First AO3 Post, Other, Summer Fic, this is gonna be a series i guess, this is rlly bad yikes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clowningstreaks/pseuds/clowningstreaks
Summary: Sometimes Jane thinks she must be stupid.





	The Art of Saying What You Mean (and meaning what you say)

**Author's Note:**

> First work? Hell yeah.

Sometimes Jane thinks she must be stupid.

There's really no other explanation for the way her mind gets all fuzzy and blank when Max looks at her that way or the way Nancy's smiled breaks into laughter. She once found her face getting hot when her fingertips brushed up against Jennifer Hayes' in the school gym when they had been putting up streamers for the Spring Dance 1985 and she didn't talk to her much after that. She sometimes noticed little things about Max, like how her hair frizzed up in the humidity and the way she bit her tongue gently when she was focused. She admired the way Nancy would delicately press pins in Jane's hair when she got ready for school and how she never forgot to write a little note on the palm of El's hand with sweet memoirs and words of encouragement. Nancy, in truth, liked having a kind of sister that wasn't too young to do those things with and Eleven liked it too, but sometimes she felt weird calling Nancy her sister for reasons she didn't quite understand.

She knew she wasn't stupid -- Hopper never ever let her think that. But sometimes, during the heat of summer when the girls wear tank tops and shorts and go swimming in their underwear, she thinks something is wrong with her brain.

Summer was the time of year it crept up on her. It was hot - hotter than it had been all year - and she lay on the cool grass, trying to gaze at what little clouds were in the sky. Her eyes squinted against the harsh sun she shifted to her stomach, fiddling with a dandelion she'd picked from the ground and letting her hair fall and tickle her neck as she turned her head about.  
Jane had seldom been this bored during the summer so far, but Mike had left for a three day camp his father forced him to do and the other's were no where to be found. She sighed.

The familiar sound of wheels against asphalt caught her attention, and soon her gaze lifted to the sound. She saw Max, in a tee shirt and baggy denim shorts, pushing herself on her skateboard through the hot air. Her long red hair streamed behind her like a ribbon and Jane couldn't help but want to touch it.

Max was always pretty to Jane, which may have been the reason she was so cruel to her at first. She couldn't help but feel jealous that her friends wanted to replace her with another cooler, prettier girl who the boys would no doubt like better.

She knew that Max liked Lucas and Lucas liked Max. She knew that she herself like Mike and Mike liked her. She knew that was the way it was. But still, on days where she watched Max skate and read comic books and play video games with her hair down and her light eyes scanning the words and screens, she ached for something out of reach from her mind.

She must have been distracted by her own thoughts because now Max was catching her attention again by standing in front of her and waving.

Jane waved back almost timidly and Max hesitantly approached her. Jane could tell Max was always holding herself back around her, as if she were scared to make her snap and hate her all over again.

"Hey," Max said breathlessly, panting hard.

Jane blinked, "Hi."

The redhead swallowed and looked around, "Um, mind if I, uh, sit?" she stammered, once again hesitant and careful.

Jane sat up and motioned for her to sit, being as quiet and reserved as she usually was.

"Thanks," she added, sitting at first and then falling on her back and breathing heavily.  
Jane studied her silently. Her skin was golden and damp with sweat, glazing her now extra prominent freckles and her lips were parted in the most captivating way as they blew her tired breaths into the air. Her hair was splayed around her in ribbons of light orange with the faintest streaks of golden blonde, almost like Jane's own short brown locks. She gazed at Max's closed eyes and her sun kissed legs and her slightly chapped, pink lips thinking about her beauty that was different than hers or Nancy's or anyone else's beauty, but still beauty. A unique, natural beauty all her own.

The faintest trace of a smile shaped on Max's parted lips, as if she were about to speak. Her eyes blinked themselves open as she stared up at the blue sky with her equally blue irises. Her chest was rising and falling normally now and Jane noticed how she took in a breath before speaking. The moments from then to when she actually did speak were endless butterflies and soft gazes and wondering just what she had to say, and then, because Jane had realized a difference between to two, what she actually would say.

All she did say was, "It is so fucking hot out here."

Jane's breath released, whether of disappointment or relief, she didn't know.

"Yeah." was all she said.

But things never really come out the way you mean them, do they?

**Author's Note:**

> This was high key bad and mostly for practice but find me on tumblr @prqsads !!


End file.
